EgyptAir cancels flights to Sudan

EgyptAir has cancelled its scheduled flights to Sudan’s capital Khartoum due to tensions brewing in the country, it said on Friday.

Similarly, some airlines in Turkey and the UAE have also cancelled their planned flights to the country due to the ongoing political crisis.

The procedures came days after forces stormed a protest camp outside the defence ministry in central Khartoum where demonstrators were demanding civilian rule. Dozens of people have been killed since Monday.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Friday urged Sudan’s military rulers and civilian opposition to try to agree on a transition toward democracy after the bloodshed that occurred last week following the overthrowal of President Omar Al-Bashir, according to Sudanese local media.

Ahmed, who flew to Khartoum from Addis Ababa to try to mediate the country’s crisis, held separate talks with the country’s ruling military council and leaders of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces, an alliance of protesters and opposition parties.

Although no breakthrough was announced at the end of the one-day visit, an adviser to the Ethiopian prime minister said the talks went well and that Ahmed would be returning to Sudan soon, as quoted by Reuters.

The military council and opposition had been in talks for weeks over who should lead Sudan’s transition to democracy. But negotiations collapsed after Monday’s violence. The opposition said it could not talk to “untrustworthy” rulers.

Opposition medics say 113 people were killed in the storming of the camp and subsequent crackdown.

The military ousted and detained Bashir on April 11, ending his 30-year rule after 16 weeks of street protests against him spearheaded by the Sudanese Professionals’ Association, part of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces.